Our Texels Produce!
Check out Jami's woolen designs and yarns at her Etsy Store!
You can now buy our hand-dyed and natural colored yarns at The Dancing Ewe in Ellensburg, a fantastic, trendy yarn and tea store!
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Cooke Creek Sheep Co. is family-owned farm located in Central Washington State. We raise Registered Purebred Texel sheep and Coopworth sheep utilizing the Texel as terminal sire on Coopworth ewes for a grass-fed, extremely muscled, lean lamb.
Thank you and Congratulations to:
Dick and Audrey Wedin of Westwind Suffolks of Ellensburg, WA for the purchase of our top '08 Texel ram lamb,
CCS 0821 "Braveheart"
This ram lamb is the exact breeding as our 2007 keeper ram, "Angus" and is the spittin' image of him - the "star" of the lamb pasture this year. We look forward to seeing his crossbred lambs from Wedin's Texel/Suffolk breeding program in spring 2009.
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Our Philosophy and Goals
We wanted to raise a hardy, quick-finishing meat lamb on a grass-fed system (keep in mind, we get 6" of precipitation a year and only have irrigation from April - July) with an emphasis on quality of cuts, especially the most sought after-- the leg and loin. This brought us to the Texel terminal sire. We were so pleased with the very first lamb crop out of our first Texel ram, that we began a purebred breeding program adding higher quality Texels to our flock each year using loineye measurements, leg scores, rate of gain figures with an emphasis on retaining prolific ewes that milk heavily to raise their twins and triplets on our pasture-based management system. These are practical sheep and we require our ewe lambs to lamb in their first year and cull out any adult ewes that don't twin or better. Our Texels don't require concentrated feeds to maintain their muscling. They are very docile, easy to handle and very hardy. We have now closed our ewe flock to maintain our health standards. All of our ewes are tested for OPP and are negative.
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Feed Program
We are a self-sustaining sheep operation. We grow our own hay and pasture raise all of our lambs to market weights without outside feed sources. We utilize mineral supplementation from outside sources, but that is about it. We cut one cutting of hay a year and rotate the ewes and lambs on designated pastures and then finish them on the hay field instead of getting a second cutting before the winter snow. Ewes are managed the same with the exception of the addition of alfalfa hay purchased from a local farm for the birthing/early lactating period. We only feed grain for a flushing period of 3 weeks to the ewes and rams before breeding time. Our lambs are hardy, good foragers and very inexpensive to feed! To us, this is practical sheep management and we ourselves prefer grass-fed lamb to eat.
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Call us if you'd like to consider adding a Texel sire into your breeding program.
Keeping involved in sheep industry issues is an important part of our management.
We are members of:
 Kittitas County Sheep Producers.
 A consistent health program is in place on our farm. We test for OPP, genotype all of our breeding sheep for scrapie resistance and are enrolled in the Scrapie Flock Certification Program, Flock WA2336 (year 5). Worming is done as needed and preventative immunizations are done on a scheduled basis. We take care of health issues are they arise; care is given, and decisions to maintain good flock health are made.
Hess 0359 with her 2005 triplets
Click logo to email us:
Cooke Creek Sheep Company
Larry and Jami Beintema
831 Cooke Canyon Road * Ellensburg, WA 98926
Phone: (509) 968-9320
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